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Top 10 New Species Discovered in 2010

Every year, thousands of new species are discovered, and among them are always a few really weird, beautiful or funny plants and animals that intrigue scientists and the public alike.

Every year, the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University along with an international committee of taxonomists — scientists who classify and describe new species — choose their 10 favorites. This year's list includes glowing mushrooms, jumping cockroaches, six-foot-long lizards and bacteria that are slowly eating the Titanic.

Images and captions provided by Arizona State University.

Above:

Louisiana Pancake Batfish

Scientifc Name:Halieutichthys intermedius

How it made the Top 10: This species was discovered just before the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 and its entire known distribution is in the region of the spill. It is also a remarkably hideous -- in a good way -- animal. It is flat like a pancake, spikey, hops on its fins and has huge bulging eyes. Its discovery and precarious existence due to the oil spill was the lead article on CNN's website and a number of other outlets.

Image: Prosanta Chakrabarty/Louisiana State University

Darwin's Bark Spider

Scientific Name:Caerostris darwini

How it made the Top 10: This orb-weaving spider builds the largest orb-style webs that are known to science. Webs of this species have been found spanning rivers, streams and lakes with “bridgelines” reaching up to 25 meters (82 feet) in length and total web size reaching up to 2.8 square meters (30 square feet).

The silk spun by these spiders has an average toughness of 250 megajoules per cubic meter with the highest measured at 520 megajoules per cubic meter. This makes it “the toughest biological material ever studied, over 10 times stronger than a similarly-sized piece of Kevlar” and more than two times stronger than any other known spider silk.

The unusual behaviors of this new species will allow us to understand size dimorphism, mate guarding and self-castration, among other thing. Also discovered in association with Darwin's bark spider was an undescribed symbiotic fly species.

Images: Matjaž Kuntner/Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Leaproach

Scientific Name:Saltoblattella montistabularis

How it made the Top 10: This new species of cockroach exhibits unusual morphology. It has legs that are highly modified for jumping. Prior to its discovery, jumping cockroaches were only known from the Late Jurassic.

This extant cockroach has jumping ability that is on par with grasshoppers. In addition to the leg modifications, it has hemispherical-shaped eyes that protrude from the sides of the head -- instead of kidney-shaped -- and the antennae have an additional fixation point to help stabilize them during jumping.

Images: Mike Picker/University of Cape Town, South Africa

Eternal Light Mushroom

Scientific Name:Mycena luxaeterna

How it made the Top 10: This new species, collected from some of the last remaining Atlantic forest habitat near São Paulo, Brazil, emits very bright yellowish green light 24 hours per day from its gel-covered stems. DNA sequences of this species -- from 5 gene regions -- are helping us to understand the origin and evolution of bioluminescence in the fungi.

Of the estimated 1.5 million species of fungi on earth, only 71 species are known to be bioluminescence and Mycena luxaeterna is one of the most visually striking species.

Titanic-Eating Bacteria

Scientific Name:Halomonas titanicae

How it made the Top 10: This new species of iron-oxide consuming bacteria was discovered on a rusticle from the RMS Titanic. Studies show that it sticks to steel surfaces creating knob-like mounds of corrosion products that have contributed, along with other microorganisms, to the deterioration process of the Titanic's metal. This will eventually lead to the Titanic's disappearance.

This bacterium could be useful to perform studies related to the disposal of old naval and merchant ships that have sunk in the deep ocean.

Orchid-Pollinating Cricket

Scientific Name:Glomeremus orchidophilus

How it made the Top 10: This species is the only pollinator of the rare/endangered orchid Angraecum cadetii on Réunion island in the southwestern Indian Ocean, representing the first clearly supported case of orthopteran-mediated pollination in flowering plants.

Walter's Duiker

Scientific Name:Philantomba walteri

How it made the Top 10: This new duiker from West Africa was first encountered at a bushmeat market. It is a surprising find because the “discovery of a new species from a well-studied group of animals in the context of bushmeat exploitation is a sobering reminder of the mammalian species that remain to be described, even within those that are being exploited on a daily basis for food or ritual activities.”

The taxonomic description of Philantomba walteri should facilitate research into its ecology and behaviour, as well as its conservation.

Image: Yann Le Bris

Underwater Mushroom

Scientific Name:Psathyrella aquatica

How it made the Top 10: This is the first report of a mushroom species fruiting underwater.

Images: Robert Coffan/Southern Oregon University

Golden Spotted Monitor

Scientific Name:Varanus bitatawa

How it made the Top 10: This is a large arboreal frugivorous lizard of the genus Varanus and can only be found in the Northern Sierra Madre Forest, Luzon Island, Philippines. The forest monitor lizard can grow to more than 2 meters (6.6 feet) in length but weighs only about 10 kilograms (22 pounds). It is brightly colored with stripes of gold flecks. Its scaly body and legs are a blue-black mottled with pale yellow-green dots and its tail is marked in alternating segments of black and green.

It is quite astounding to think that something this size has eluded biologists that surveyed the area possibly because it spent most of its time in trees. However, it was known to the local hunters and is already a flagship for conservation in the Philippines.